Monthly Archives: September 2012

I’d like to start by pointing out that this touchdown was scored 15 feet in front of me during freshman year, and I swear Thomas Brown and I made eye contact just after he broke the last tackle. He scored that TD for me. I don’t even care if Georgia lost that game.

Rocky Top Talk – a Tennessee sports blog that is much more accomplished than the site you’re currently reading – described Saturday’s game in this way:

A Georgia team facing its toughest test, a Tennessee team looking to pass its first test, and two quarterbacks ready to ascend. Who graduates on Saturday?

I’m not sure that I can whole-heartedly agree with all of those sentiments, simply because I don’t know what is true about Tennessee. It certainly seems – at first glance particularly – that Tennessee would be Georgia’s toughest test to date, but is that accurate? With all due respect to Tennessee, I’m just not sure how much respect is due to Tennessee.

I do respect the crap out of this guy though.

Tennessee as Georgia’s Toughest Test

I’m not sure, for instance, that hosting Tennessee is a tougher task than traveling to Missouri for the Tigers’ first ever SEC home game. Is Tennessee better than Missouri? Probably so. But, there’s nothing to indicate that Tennessee is better than Missouri by a margin large enough to make up for the gap between Sanford Stadium in Athens and Columbia, Missouri. In fact, Missouri’s “signature” win this season – a 24-20 victory over Arizona State – might be more significant than Tennessee’s win over the NC State Wolfpack. (I think Arizona State could beat NC State any day.) Missouri has lost two games (one at home, one on the road), both to teams ranked 7th in the country at the time and both by 21 points. I’m not sure those losses are any worse than UT’s 17-point home loss to then 18th ranked Florida.

Tennessee moved into the top-25 earlier this year following the aforementioned win against NC State and a victory against FCS Georgia State. Georgia State is the fourth best team in the state of Georgia (following UGA, Tech and GA Southern) if – and only if – we exclude some of the powerhouse high school teams in metro Atlanta. Tennessee got beat down at home by Florida to promptly drop out of the top-25 before letting Akron hang around for a half in Knoxville last weekend. From an accomplishment standpoint the only thing that separates Tennessee from Vanderbilt is a win over NC State, and the Commodores haven’t played NC State.

So, are the Volunteers really Georgia’s toughest test so far this season? If they are, I don’t think they are by an overwhelming margin. What scares me about Tennessee is this: Georgia is a much, much better team than the Tennessee Volunteers, but a lot of time that doesn’t mean anything in this rivalry. In 2007 the Bulldogs suffered a defeat to an inferior Tennessee team and that loss came back to haunt Matthew Stafford and company as it essentially eliminated the Dawgs from National Championship contention. The next season 10th ranked Georgia played host to a Tennessee team that was outmatched and carrying a record of 2-3 (0-2 in the SEC). Matthew Stafford had his first career 300-yard game that day and Knowshon Moreno ran for 100, but Georgia still was clinging to a fragile 6-point lead at the start of the fourth quarter. And, to be fair but not waste time looking into it, I’m sure that Vol fans can spout off a number of times when a superior Tennessee team struggled against the Bulldogs.

Tennessee’s Need to Pass a Test

I certainly agree that Tennessee is, in fact, looking to pass its first “test.” Derek Dooley’s squad is looking for its first “signature” (I hate that term) victory. They’re looking for a win over a top-25 team. They’re looking for an SEC win. They’re looking for a win over a rival. They’re looking for hope. And, a win over Georgia gives them all of that. That kind of motivation should scare Georgia a little bit. A team scratching and clawing for respect can be a scary thing.

Fortunately for Georgia, Tennessee is very much entering the “unknown.” When you lose 12-straight games against ranked opponents your players struggle to know how to win against good teams. They struggle to maintain leads. They struggle to rally from behind. They struggle with confidence late in the game. They struggle to execute. Tennessee’s last win over a ranked opponent was on Halloween night of 2009. I was actually at that game as Tennessee wore their Jack-o-lantern black and puke orange uniforms. No player that scored against South Carolina that night still plays for UT.

Like zoinks, scooby!

Tennessee’s last victory over a top-25 team on the road was against the Georgia Bulldogs. On Octber 7, 2006. Tyler Bray was 14 years old. The Vols are a long way removed from that, and will need damn-near perfection to take down the Dawgs. Or a disaster of a game from the Dawgs.

The latter point brings me to Rocky Top Talk’s expressed notion that this game features two quarterbacks who are “ready to ascend.” Frankly, these two QBs are on two different levels. Tyler “Fifty Shades of” Bray may have NFL scouts drooling with his 6-6 frame and his beer-bottle-toss, but if you’re looking for accomplishments on the collegiate level, Aaron Murray has already “ascended.”

Murray and Bray are both juniors. Murray held a decisive advantage over Bray in passing yardage, touchdown passes and QB rating in each of those three seasons. Bray missed significant time due to a wittle injuwy on his finga last season, but Murray has never missed a game – further evidence that Bray can ascend, but Murray has probably already made it. Murray gets a bad rap for throwing interceptions, but are his 24 picks over 31 starts worse than Bray’s 17 INTs in 16 starts? Mathematically, the answer is no – and I was captain of my high school math team.

Bray may boast a 300 yard per game passing, but his performance against the SEC has been much less impressive. In his last five outing against conference foes (Florida this season and Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Florida and Georgia last season) Bray has posted the following statistics:

opp

comp

att

yards

td

int

rtg

UF

22

44

257

2

2

105

UK

15

38

215

1

2

85.2

Vandy

16

33

189

2

2

104.5

Georgia

18

33

251

0

0

118.4

Florida

26

48

288

3

2

116.9

In Murray’s last five SEC games he’s done the following:

opp

comp

att

yards

td

int

rtg

Vandy

18

24

250

2

0

190

Missouri

22

35

242

3

1

143.5

LSU

16

40

163

1

2

72.5

Kentucky

16

29

162

1

1

106.6

Auburn

14

18

224

4

0

255.6

Over that stretch an average game for Bray has the following stat line:

Georgia is 4-1 in those five games and has scored an average of 32.6 points in each game.

So, I don’t exactly buy the notion that Aaron Murray and Tyler Bray both have the opportunity to “ascend” in this game. Murray is there, Bray is not. And, to be clear, I’m not slighting Bray. He may very well have a higher upside than Murray and he’s only had about half the playing time of Murray. But let’s not compare apples to oranges here.

Bray only holds a lead on Murray in raw passing yard stats. Why is that? Murray just doesn’t get as many attempts as Bray with Georgia’s balanced offense. Murray is currently hitting on 66.3% of his passes while throwing a TD every 10.4 attempts and throwing picks once every 52 attempts. If he was given the chance to pass as often as Bray has this season, Murray’s current stat line would be:

98 of 148 for 1554 yards, 14 TDs and 3 INTs.

In other words Aaron Murray would be the nation’s leader in passing yards (by 73 yards) and in TDs (by two) if he got Tyler Bray’s reps. He’d have thrown for 253 more yards than Bray and two more TD passes.

Both teams figure to put up a lot of yards and a lot of points, although they probably won’t hit their high averages.

I might be naïve, but I don’t anticipate Tennessee putting up a lot of yards and a lot of points. This will be the first game of a fully present defense for Georgia (presumably). The Georgia defense’s only glaring hole this season has been long plays down the middle – the exact types of plays that an All-American Free Safety (Rambo) and an All-SEC middle linebacker (Ogletree) should stop. If you take away those plays Georgia’s defense has been tremendous for a second consecutive year.

Rambo doesn’t take too kindly to fools trying to cross the middle.

Tennessee hasn’t produced over 300 yards of offense against an SEC defense since September 17th of last year when they rolled up 340 yards against Florida. I mentioned that Bray’s offense has only scored 16.8 points per game in their last five SEC games. Well, that’s going to happen a lot to teams who only rack up an average of 291 yards.

Georgia’s defense may not quite be at full-speed on Saturday (although I hope it is), but there’s no reason to think the Dawgs defense will ultimately (by November at the latest) end up being any less stifling than it was last year. Last season the Vols scored 12 points against Georgia in Knoxville. I could see a similar showing if Georgia’s defense shows up in peak form.

Is Tennessee’s offense better this year than last year? Maybe so. But, in the Vols first four games last season they averaged 37.75 points against an FCS opponent, a Big East squad, a MAC team and Florida. This year the Vols are averaging 38.25 points against an eerily similar slate of an FCS opponent, an ACC squad, a MAC team and Florida.

For the first time in several years I actually fully expect Georgia to come in and take care of business this weekend against an SEC foe. If I’m right Georgia will cover the 14-16 point spread. If I’m wrong they’ll hold on for a close, ugly victory. Either way, Georgia wins this game.

Editor’s Note: Please check out Rocky Top Talk. Again, they do a phenomenal job and are probably much more knowledgeable than I am. And, although I disagree with some of the points they made, I wouldn’t even mention them or debate them if I didn’t respect their work.

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In honor of week five here are five random (non-SEC) games that you should look forward to this weekend:

5. Stanford at Washington (Thursday, 9:00 PM): The Stanford Cardinal is/are the best college football team in America according to several computer polls that will factor into the BCS Poll beginning October 14th. There are two reasons for this: 1. Stanford’s proximity to Silicon Valley – a.k.a. the motherland for computers and the nerds that operate them, and 2. The fact that Stanford’s three opponents (San Jose State, Duke and USC) are 9-0 outside of their losses to the Cardinal. Now, you and I both know that San Jose State and Duke are garbage teams and that USC has been tried once and defeated once. But, computers don’t know that. You and I can see that Stanford is a good team and might be a very good team, but the Luck-less squad is not great and is a long way from the best. But, computers can’t see that. In the spirit of all that is right with college football (the SEC) we all need to start rooting for losses by 8th ranked (in real polls) Stanford, and that starts tonight against the Washington Huskies. Is a loss likely for the trees? No, probably not. But it seems like every year there is a cute little Thursday night upset in the Pac-12 (remember Jacquizz Rodgers and Oregon State over USC in 2008?). I’d like it to be tonight.

I love Stanford!!!

4. Ohio State at Michigan State (Saturday, 3:30 PM): Ohio State / Michigan State is the new Ohio State / Michigan. The Buckeyes have had a good time whooping up on their non-conference schedule (Miami OH, UCF, Cal and UAB) and now head into a stretch of eight straight Big 10 games. The Spartans meanwhile have already defeated a ranked Boise State squad and lost to a Notre Dame team that may or may not actually be good. These two teams are very much the class of the Big 10 and may square off again in the conference championship game. The winner starts paving the way to a BCS Bowl.

3. Texas at Oklahoma State (Saturday, 7:50 PM): This game may not actually have the legs I want it to, but here is why it intrigues me. Oklahoma State boasts the nation’s most explosive offense at over 62 points per game. And yet, the Cowboys have a blemished record thanks to a loss to Arizona. The Cowboys will square off against a Texas defense that is only allowing 16 points per game. And yet, the Longhorns gave up 31 to an Ole Miss team that scored fewer points against UTEP. The paper shows the Longhorns as the better team (ranked 14th in the nation), but this is a classic example of two teams who have played two very different schedules early on and are being evaluated on different levels. I’m not saying that Texas isn’t the 14th best team in the land or that Oklahoma State is better, I’m simply saying that from where I sit anything could happen in this game. And, with the season still developing a win by the Cowboys over the Cows could vault OK State into the top-25 and drop Texas out. There is a lot of volatility in this game.

2. Middle Tennessee at Georgia Tech (Saturday, 12:00 PM): If you want to believe in some really crazy upset on Saturday, this might be your best bet. Georgia Tech has lost two heart-breaking overtime games to Virginia Tech and Miami already this season and thus all but eliminated themselves from ACC contention. Their dire circumstances and the emotional toll that put the Jackets in this position could very well vest itself in the form of a lackluster day for Paul Johnson’s squad. MTSU meanwhile comes in with a competent QB (156.7 QB rating) and a balanced rushing attack to take on a Tech defense that can only occasionally stop teams. The Blue Raiders will be severely outmatched on both the offensive and defensive lines, but they could prove more scrappy than the Yellow Jackets in this battle of colorful teams.

1. Oregon State at Arizona (Saturday, 10:00 PM): This is a must-watch game because I want to see if my readers can stay up later than I can on Saturday night. There’s no way I make it past midnight. The Oregon State bandwagon is filling up after back-to-back wins over ranked teams (Wisconsin and UCLA), but I have to wonder about the Beavers’ offense since it scored only 10 points against a Wisconsin defense that’s allowed over 20 points per game in three other games (Northern Iowa, Utah State, UTEP) and barely scored more against UCLA than the Bruins gave up (on average) to Rice, Nebraska and Houston. I’m impressed by Oregon State on defense, but there are a lot of questions on offense. Arizona, meanwhile, is still looking for an identity. Are they the team that beat 18th ranked Oklahoma State by 21 points and won 56-0 over South Carolina State? Or, are they the team that needed overtime to take down Toledo and lost 49-0 against Oregon. A win by the Wildcats makes their matchup with Stanford the following Saturday pretty darn interesting. A win by Oregon State sets the Beavers up as a top-15 team before a fortuitous run against Washington State, Utah and Washington and then dates with Arizona State and Stanford in early November.

SEC-sy Time

There is good news for a number of SEC teams this weekend. Vanderbilt and Auburn get the week off to nurse their wounds after each team started the season 1-3 overall and 0-2 in the conference. The bad news is the fact that both teams have the distinct pleasure of being last in their respective division. The good news is neither team will lose this weekend!

Vanderbilt Football…undefeated since our last game!

Florida and Mississippi State also get a chance to rest, but these two teams actually have noteworthy accomplishments to their credit. Both teams are off to 4-0 starts and the Gators have the unique claim of being the only 3-0 team in SEC play – although South Carolina and Georgia may catch the Gators this weekend.

Arkansas gets to travel to familiar College Station (the Starkville of Texas, or so I’m told) and take on the Aggies from Texas A&M. The hometeam is favored by 13 points, but I’m going to root for the upset in an effort to end the madness that is the Arkansas tailspin and keep A&M out of the SEC’s win column. Keep in mind that somewhere, buried in a very deep and dark place, is a really talented Arkansas offense managed by a highly regarded pro prospect at QB and an explosive once-Heisman candidate at running back. Keep in mind that someday that team might show up (although my long-term bet is that it’s on November 23rd against LSU).

Missouri travels to Central Florida this weekend where the Knights are favored by as many as three points. And, in case you are confused and haven’t been following the Knights are Central Florida’s mascot, and Missouri just joined the SEC. So yeah, in the name of “expansion” and “progress” and other feel-goody stuff the Southeastern Conference has added a team that is now an underdog to Central Florida. Great move. I pick Missouri in the upset. SEC! SEC! SEC!

South Carolina gets to roll to Lexington and take on the Kentucky Wildcats. Connor Shaw will not complete 20 consecutive passes this week, because frankly I’m not sure that he’ll attempt 20 passes. Gamecocks win.

LSU plays host to the Tigers of Towson. Look for the upset here as the Towson Tigers build on their big victory against the St. Francis (PA) Red Flash and take down the Bayou Bengals. LSU wins.

The Ole Miss Rebels’ football season will come crashing down in a big way as they travel to Tuscaloosa to take on Alabama in the toe-jam of the south. Ole Miss is averaging just short of 260 rushing yards per game this season. Alabama’s defense is just allowing 62. I wouldn’t count on Ole Miss holding onto the football too much in this game. The Tide rolls.

Georgia will play host to Tennessee this weekend, but there will be much more on that tomorrow.

Must-Miss YouTube

…And a little bit more right now. This week’s game could very much dictate Derek Dooley’s future in Knoxville. A win gives him a “signature” victory over a top-25 team. A loss drops the Vols to 0-2 in conference play with three more top-25 opponentes (Mississippi State, Alabama, South Carolina) looming in October. It could get ugly for old Derek.

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By now you’ve probably noticed the new design on DudeYouCrazy.net. Don’t worry – this isn’t merely a Pro Combat version of the old design; my blog is not going to lose to Boise State. This is mostly permanent, although I’m still playing around with a few features on the WordPresser.

Previously I used a site editor maintained by The Google Company. As it turns out the Google Company’s Google Machine has surpassed Ask Jeeves as the leading interwebs page finder, but the Google Company’s website editor is not very state of the art. How bad was the old layout? A buddy once asked me if I used a web-based program or if I typed in each article Microsoft Word and then scanned the pages in as images. So I guess it was pretty bad.

Not to worry the same “great” content will still be coming at you – but with a little more functionality.

Commenting is now easier, so start doing that.

The content is more easily sorted – All of my stuff is under “Blog” but there are specific sub-categories for Georgia-specific content and SEC related posts.

You can now see my tweets and follow directly from the site.

You can also access the DudeYouCrazy Facebook page directly from the site.

Most importantly, you can share each post on Facebook and/or Twitter.

Best of all it is now easier for me to post which means you’ll be getting more Crazy than ever.

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Did anyone watch the Florida / Kentucky game? I didn’t think so. Neither did I, but from what I can gather there was never any doubt in the game as Florida scored points and Kentucky did not. Imentioned last week that Florida needed to dominate the game to be taken seriously and they did just that. I’m still a little bit on the fence about the Gators, but we’ll learn a lot when they travel to LSU in two weeks.

Speaking of LSU…. Who knew a team could look so bad against Auburn? The Tigers from Alabama’s backup school had allowed an average of 28.33 points per game against Clemson, Mississippi State and powerhouse Louisiana-Monroe. And yet the dfense showed up in time to hold LSU to 12 points? I felt like LSU had a lot of questions on the offensive side of the ball, but wow. LSU racked up fewer yards, fewer first downs and turned the ball over more often than Clemson, MSU and LA-Mo. War Damn Damn.

Former UGA QB turned Sexual Assaulter turned LSU Tiger would love to stay and chat about

Ole Miss threw down in a big way to improve to 3-1 heading into the stretch of the season that won’t let them win. Nonetheless I pegged the Rebels for two or three wins late this summer and they’ve already met that expectation. Good for you Ole Miss. Good. For. You.

Alabama proved FAU’s defensive end Cory Henry exactly right or exactly wrong depending on how you look at it. Alabama proved to be – as Henry asserted – a good team that executes well and wins game. But, unlike Henry’s assessment Alabama was still exactly what people think. Alabama didn’t match Georgia’s 700+ yards of offense against the Owls, but the Crimson Tide did hold FAU to a measly 110 yards of offense. How bad is that? Let’s put it this way: I was watching a ballgame in Athens, GA and the Owls still only outgained me by 110 yards against Alabama. Even more impressive is the fact that the Alabama defense did that without forcing a turnover.

Apparently South Carolina’s 21 point win over Missouri was enough to move the Gamecocks up from 7th in the country to 6th. I find this odd as Georgia’s 21 point win over the Missouri Tigers resulted in the Bulldogs going nowhere. Yeah sure, Oklahoma lost this week and made room for a slide up – but let’s not give Carolina too much credit for winning this game at home. Let’s not ever give Carolina too much credit for anything. Ever. I don’t care if Connor Shaw completed 20 straight passes. At one point he was 0/1. You can’t start games like that and expect to win every week. (Georgia’s Aaron Murray started off 12/12 passing).

How about good old Arkansas? Are they the new Ole Miss? The West needs a grazer to go around and clean up after all the Tigers and Elephants. Can we all just agree now that it is total BS that South Carolina gets to play Arkansas this year? The Razorbacks are 78th in the country in points scored and 110th in points allowed. I wish Georgia could play them! And, before we throw out the voluntary “it’s early” arguments remember: three of Arkansas’ opponents this year are Jacksonville State (an FCS school), Louisiana-Monroe (a Sun Belt team that is 1-2 thanks to a loss to Baylor where RGIII doesn’t play anymore) and now Rutgers (a Big Least school). The NFL’s replacement refs said Arkansas looked bad. What’s wild is that Arkansas should have some talent. John L. Smith must be worse at coaching than he is at balancing a check book. I’m going to continue to pick Arkansas in hopes that he is just on a one-man mission to prove my predictions wrong – even at the cost of his career.

YouTube Video

Texas A&M has really looked tough playing SMU and South Carolina State these past two weeks. The combined score of 118-17 has to feel good to the 12th man. I wouldn’t mind being correct in my coming pick of Arkansas over the Aggies this week. I’d love to see the two SEC newbies fall to 0-4.

In preparation of the Georgia game the Tennessee Volunteers did their best Georgia impression against Akron as they let a little league team hang around for the first half before crossing the 40 point line and winning the game by 20+ (as the Dawgs did against Buffalo, Mizzou and FAU). I hope Tennessee does their best Vanderbilt impression this week and rolls over immediately following the opening kickoff.

Mississippi State remains in the top-25 despite the fact that they’re coming off of a six-loss 2011 campaign, replacing starters all over the offense and not really accomplishing anything. The Bulldogs résumé this year is far from noteworthy and their track record dating back to last season (2-6 in the SEC with lone wins against Kentucky and Ole Miss) is less than impressive. They’re off this week before playing Kentucky on October 6th. The Tennessee game may be a toss-up but if they upset the Vols and win against Middle Tennessee State as they could be in the top-15 and riding 6 weeks in the top-25. This will make it super awkward to let them know that they aren’t as good as Alabama, Texas A&M or LSU as we watch them disappear. Weird.

SEC East

How about the SEC? Everyone who thought it would be a down year was exactly right. The SEC only has four of the top six and five of the top eleven teams in the country. And if I may be so bold as to point this out: three of the top five SEC teams are in the East. Alabama may still be at the top but LSU looks very beatable and many writers agree. Last week LSU held a 230 point edge over Georgia in the AP Poll and a 352 point lead over South Carolina. This week if fell to 95 points over Georgia and 199 over the Cocks.

Heisman

Don’t try to explain to me why Kansas State’s Collin Klein is now third on ESPN’s Heisman Watch Poll following a 13/21 passing performance and a total of 228 yards of offense and 1 TD.

On the year Klein has 1047 yards of offense and 10 total TDs to go with 2 INTs. Aaron Murray has 1093 yards of offense to go with 13 TDs and 2 INTs. Murray also has a higher QB Rating.

Know what’s an even harder sell than Klein? De’Anthony Thomas. De’Anthony is sitting at fourth on De’Poll. And he’s having a great season. How great? Almost as good as Georgia freshman Todd Gurley. De’Anthony has 572 yards of offense and seven TDs. Gurley has 657 yards of offense and seven TDs.

Other Stuff

Don’t get too comfortable on the Florida State bandwagon just yet. Remember that the Seminoles just gave up 37 points to a good Clemson team – but a Clemson team that score only 26 points against Auburn. FSU doesn’t have the defense to survive a whole season – even in the ACC. And, even if they did I think they’d lose to Florida. So let them enjoy the fact that they almost covered the spread in a rare top-10 matchup between ACC teams, but know that the Seminoles won’t be in a National Championship game. Unless it’s that of the Seminole Nation. They have a good shot at winning that one.